119. When we drop our personal opinions a life of ease and happiness that’s been there all along has a chance to show up

When you’re hurting emotionally in your dating relationships it’s always because of something you’re thinking. Thought precedes emotion. Proving that is easy: You don’t hurt emotionally when you’re asleep and not dreaming.

So that makes things pretty simple doesn’t it? If I don’t want to hurt all I have to do is stop thinking! But whoaaa! How do I do that? Hmm, it turns out we’re not in control of our thinking are we? We don’t know where the “off” switch is. Thoughts come and go on their own, unbidden and unrequested.

Well then, how do we stop the emotional turmoil when our dating goes bad? How do we stop that ache in the gut, that lonely emptiness, that tightness in our jaw, that worry that I’ll never find anyone? There are two ways we can deal with that suffering.

One is to simply notice what we just said, that thoughts show up on their own and they’re not ours. The problem is that we’ve been conditioned to think they mean something. But if you look closely you’ll notice that life has always done what it wanted regardless of what we thought about it. So when painful thoughts show up you can just notice them and put your focus again on what’s happening in this very moment. After all, this moment is the only place where there’s real, vital life going on. Thoughts are always about the past or future, both of which aren’t real.

When you’re ignoring thoughts I’m not talking about resisting them. I’m not saying to turn this into some kind of chore where you’re telling yourself you shouldn’t be having these thoughts. That’s resistance, and resistance simply holds thoughts in place: The thought has to stay there for you to be able to resist it.

The second way to deal with painful thoughts is to question them. A thought comes: “I need Joe in my life,” and you question that. Is that true? Really true? Can you even know for dead sure that you’re better with Joe in your life? Maybe the Universe has a higher vision than you do and maybe it’s been running this planet for eons and knows what it’s doing? When we lie to ourselves by telling ourselves we know best we always hurt. When we see the reality – that Infinite Intelligence has been running the show all along and probably knows perfection better than we do, we can just relax into watching life. That’s easy and effortless. Without your personal ego-centered struggle, life for you becomes just what’s always been there waiting for you as a quiet backdrop – silence, stillness, peace, acceptance and love.

Copyright © 2006 Chuck Custer